Category Archives: Guns

When the would-be gun-banners have lost NPR (well, sort of) they’ve lost big. Now, I’m sure NPR as an entity hasn’t abandoned its left-leaning positions, nor have they suddenly become Second Amendment advocates, but in this case, at least, they have shown that facts matter. Excerpt:

How many times per year does a gun go off in an American school?

We should know. But we don’t.

This spring the U.S. Education Department reported that in the 2015-2016 school year, “nearly 240 schools … reported at least 1 incident involving a school-related shooting.” The number is far higher than most other estimates.

But NPR reached out to every one of those schools repeatedly over the course of three months and found that more than two-thirds of these reported incidents never happened. Child Trends, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization, assisted NPR in analyzing data from the government’s Civil Rights Data Collection.

We were able to confirm just 11 reported incidents, either directly with schools or through media reports.

In 161 cases, schools or districts attested that no incident took place or couldn’t confirm one. In at least four cases, we found, something did happen, but it didn’t meet the government’s parameters for a shooting. About a quarter of schools didn’t respond to our inquiries.

In other words, the data stinks, and nobody really has a good grasp on how many school shootings happened. And, honestly, in a nation the size of the United States, that isn’t at all surprising.

Here’s what doesn’t seem to be happening in the data-gathering:

The questions asked are not consistent.

Definitions are not clear and concise. (What, precisely, constitutes a “school shooting?”)

Ambiguous responses are not followed-up.

In other words, the data gathering technique was crap, and therefore, the conclusions drawn were crap. The Dept. of Education, who commissioned the study, should be terribly embarrassed when not only NPR but Everytown for Gun Safety questions their results.

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Thieves in Paraguay have stolen 42 powerful rifles from the police armoury.

During an inspection, officers found that the FN FAL battle rifles had been replaced with wooden and plastic replicas.

The inspection had been ordered after the rifles started appearing a year ago on the black market, where they can fetch up to $10,000 (£7,785).

The rifles had been put into storage but were still in working order.

Some of them are thought to have ended up in Argentina while others are believed to have been smuggled to Brazil.

Neighbouring Brazil has long complained that many of the illegal weapons seized there have been smuggled into the country from Paraguay.

Paraguayan media posted photos of the replicas and called it the “most embarrassing scandal” in the history of the country’s police force.

That last statement rates an enormous “no shit.”

Not only is this a major embarrassment to these Paraguayan cops, it should serve as an object lesson for would-be gun-banners, not that they’ll pay attention to it; bad guy swill always find a way to get guns. In this case, they laid hands on several full-power military main battle rifles, and did so cleverly enough that the theft was not noticed until the rifles started appearing on the black market in three different countries.

Crimes committed by thugs with guns are at high levels and increasing in much of Central and South America, in spite of gun control laws that exceed the wildest wet dreams of the American left. A fundamental rule of cause analysis it that a tool can never be a cause; but the knee-jerk reaction of blaming the sword for the hand that wields it seems to be all too widespread.

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Thanks as always to Pirate’s Cove and The Other McCain for the Rule Five links! This Monday finds us in (ugh) New Jersey, from where we’ll be posting for a while. Expect some… pointed cultural observations.

On the Internet, and in print, many people claim that pistols lack efficacy in defending against bear attacks. Here is an example that occurred on freerepublic.com:

“Actually, there are legions of people who have been badly mauled after using a handgun on a bear. Even some of the vaunted magnums.”

OK, give us a few examples. As you claim “legions”, it should not be too hard.

I never received a response. I believe the claim was made in good faith. There has been much conjecture about the lack of efficacy of pistols for defense against bears. A little searching will find a plethora of fantasy, fiction, mythology, and electrons sprayed about the supposed lack.

I engaged in a search for instances where pistols were used to defend against bears. I and my associates have found 37 instances that are fairly easily confirmed. The earliest happened in 1987, the latest mere months ago. The incidents are heavily weighted toward the present, as the ability to publish and search for these incidents has increased, along with increases in bear and human populations, and the carry of pistols.

The 37 cases include one that can fairly be described as a “failure”.

The pistol calibers, when known, range from 9 mm to .454 Casull. The most common are .44 magnums.

What I found surprising here is that the 9mm Parabellum, not a round recommended for bear defense, was surprisingly successful. The preferred ammo for bears would seem to be full-metal-jacket rounds, unlike those recommended for defense against smaller, less muscular thin-skinned critters like, say, humans. Penetration, rather than expansion, would seem to be the order of the day.

Note also that several of the defensive uses happened after the failure of the bear pepper sprays that are advocated in some corners.

The summary would seem to be this: If you’re traveling on foot in bear country, pack along a good sidearm with good ammo, one that you can shoot well. That seems to matter more than the gun or the cartridge.

Robeson County Sheriff’s Office Maj. Anthony Thompson told local media that James Dority, 39, of St. Pauls, was discovered by deputies after a call about 6:40 p.m. last Friday in reference to a person being shot.

Authorities say that Dority had been shot five times with a .22-caliber handgun by an unidentified 68-year-old woman after she arrived home to find the man hiding in her storage building and he lunged at her in “an aggressive manner” when confronted.

Personally I’d recommend something a little more substantial than a .22, but a hit with a .22 is better than a miss with a .45, and it’s important to use a handgun you can shoot accurately; since this was a 68-year old lady, she may have chosen properly after all.

And, when push came to shove, she sure got the job done.

If, as I suspect, some of your True Believers grew up in a rural/semi-rural environment as I did, you’ll probably have similar memories that home invasions and occupied-structure burglaries almost never happened. Why? Because in Allamakee County Iowa, at least, one of the surest way to end up shot would be to kick someone’s front door in when they’re at home.

That’s as it should be, frankly. The criminals, not law-abiding citizens, should be the ones fearing for their safety.

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Background: One of the utterly predictable retorts from opponents of shall-issue concealed-carry was the “OMG THERE WILL BE SHOOTOUTS OVER PARKING SPACES, RHEEEEEEE” argument. (And I use the word ‘argument’ in the broadest possible sense.)

Thursday’s shooting at the Circle A Food Store at 1201 Sunset Point Road near Clearwater started about 3:30 p.m. when Jacobs, 25, parked in a handicap spot while McGlockton and their 5-year-old son went inside to buy snacks and drinks.

Drejka, 47, confronted Jacobs about why she was parked there without a permit, according to the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office. The two started arguing heatedly. McGlockton, 28, caught wind of the confrontation.

He left the store, walked up to Drejka and shoved him to the ground with both hands. Drejka pulled out a handgun and shot McGlockton in the chest. McGlockton was soon pronounced dead.

Gualtieri said the next day that he was precluded by law from arresting the shooter and seeking charges against him, saying Drejka told deputies he was in fear of further attack.

Now, there are only two people who know exactly what happened here, and one of them is dead. But we do know a few things:

The incident began over a car illegally parked in a handicapped parking spot. Full disclosure, Mrs. A depends on those spaces, and I have asked people move out when they are illegally parked. Most people apologize and move.

When Drejka engaged Jacobs, who was sitting in the car, her boyfriend, the ironically-named McGlockton, engaged him by attacking and shoving him to the ground. McGlockton clearly and inexcusably initiated a physical confrontation.

Drejka, on the pavement, drew his handgun, at which point McGlockton backed away. Drejka then fired the fatal shot.

On the surface, whether charges were filed or not, I’m hesitant to call this a good shoot; it looks to me in the grainy, no-sound video like McGlockton was backing away, thereby disengaging. It looks to me like a case where just the appearance of the firearm ended the incident.

But hindsight is always 20-20.

It’s important to note that there was no audio presented. Was McGlockton shouting as he backed away? If he was shouting “get me my gun, I’m gonna shoot this motherfucker” or even “I’m gonna kick your ass into next week” that would put a whole different slant on Drejka’s threat assessment.

This is probably a case where we’ll never know the whole story. The local DA knows as much as anyone, and he has declined to press charges, but judging from the beginning of the RHEEEE from other parties, it doesn’t look like it’s over yet.

Thoughts?

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A while back, I chronicled my thoughts on sack-o-crap Gersh Kuntzman of the New York Daily News, lying about having fired an AR-15. Now this week we saw another sack-o-crap, Christine Lavin of the San Francisco Chronicle, lying about owning a Glock. Excerpts follow, with my comments.

I had come to Oakland from Texas, where having guns was part of the culture. When you go to a church or a bar in Texas, you usually see a sign saying “Leave your guns outside.” I bought mine at a gun show, with no background check, just cash on the barrel, so to speak. I took a gun safety class and started to target-shoot for a hobby. I got pretty good. Eventually, I became an instructor in gun safety and taught classes on weekends.

A couple things; I haven’t spent much time in Texas for quite a few years, so any True Believers from that state, enlighten me; have you ever, ever seen a church with a sign stating “Leave your guns outside?” Unless someone tells me different, I’m calling bullshit on that one. Also, the buying of the gun at a gun show? I suppose she may have bought one cash on the barrelhead from another private party, but this stinks a lot like a backhanded swipe at the whole “gun show loophole” horseshit. In other words, I ain’t buying it.

But here’s the real knee-slapper:

I opened my glove compartment, took out my Glock 17, and flipped off the safety. It was the first time it had ever come out of the glove compartment for any reason other than target practice. I rolled down the driver’s window and held the gun in front of my chest in both hands, as I’d been taught.

Let that sink in for a moment. Ready? When I read that, my initial thoughts were these:

What.

Fucking.

SAFETY?

For those who may not be familiar with Gaston Glock’s designs, the Glock 17 – indeed, any Glock – has no external safety. This is, as was Kuntzman’s column, pure horseshit. Ms. Lavin does not and never has owned a Glock of any kind. She made up, out of whole cloth, the entire damned story.

Is it any wonder that journalists don’t exactly enjoy the unqualified trust of the American people any more? Why the hell would Ms. Lavin put out such a transparent, easily disprovable lie? What was she trying to prove? What point was she trying to make?

I guess it’s unfathomable to people who, you know, don’t lie to try to make a point.

You know, those of us who actually know something about firearms have of late been accused of “gunsplaining” when confronted with would-be gun-banners who generally don’t know the difference between ass and face where guns are concerned. That’s been the case for a long time, and we’re kind of used to it. But when someone writes what seems to be a sort of pro-gun article for a liberal paper, and stuffs it with horseshit like this, that’s just baffling.

An armed civilian took down a shooter after at least two people were shot Sunday night at a Washington state Walmart, police said.

Tumwater police said the civilian, described by officers as a good Samaritan, shot and killed the suspect at the scene.

The shooting happened just after 5:30 p.m. at the Walmart Supercenter in Tumwater, about 65 miles south of Seattle.

“I heard two bangs. It sounded like gunshots to me,” witness Robert Berwick said. “I looked down the aisle and saw a person running.”

That’s when Berwick ran, too. There was chaos in the parking lot, and he said the shooting suspect tried to carjack another man. That’s when the suspect was shot.

“I thanked him for saving my life,” Berwick said of the attempted carjacking victim who shot the suspect. “He didn’t look like he had any regrets. I hope he doesn’t have any.”

Another witness to the shooting, Megan Chadwick, said her husband saw the civilian take down the shooter.

“He said he watched him (the shooter) take his last breath,” Chadwick said. “There were three civilians going after him (the shooter) to shoot him and two of them had their guns up — and then the third guy shot him through the window of the car.”

Chadwick said her husband was armed as well.

Note that the linked story goes to a local news station. You won’t hear much about this from the legacy media; it doesn’t fit The Narrative. In the aftermath of recent mass shootings where the perp was made into an instant celebrity, you hear would-be gun-grabbers whining that “good guys with guns never stop crimes.”

Well, here’s a good guy with a gun – one of four on the scene, it seems – who stopped a crime. What’s more, due to his good marksmanship, the taxpayers are spared the expense of a trial.

I’d call that a good outcome.

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On June 13, the anti-gun ordinance passed by the Chicago suburb would have gone into effect. It was essentially a gun ban, and there were no exceptions. It’s either you turn them over, move, or risk facing a $250-$1,000/ day noncompliance fee. Yeah, the AR-15 and other rifles the anti-gun Left finds scary were banned, but it also included scores of handguns. Magazines holding 15 rounds are not uncommon. Luckily, a circuit court judge blocked this law 24 hours from going into effect. And yes, legal challenges were filed against this grossly unconstitutional law (via Vice News):

A judge blocked a ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines in the small town of Deerfield, Illinois, less than 24 hours before it was meant to go into effect.

The decision, handed down Tuesday evening in the 19th Judicial Circuit Court in Lake County, Illinois, is a small victory for gun rights groups, who sued the Chicago suburb in April after it became the first municipality to ban assault weapons following the Parkland high school shooting. The Deerfield ordinance was passed unanimously by all six board members on April 2.

Gun groups, including the National Rifle Association of Illinois, requested a temporary restraining order against the ban while the lawsuit proceeded.

Here in Colorado the People’s Republic of Boulder passed a similar ban, seemingly defying our state’s pre-emption law. Oregon has a similar ‘turn ’em in’ law proposed as a ballot initiative. Thus the trend of blaming the sword for the hand that wields it continues.

Last week we had one of those “good guy with a gun” moments that the Brady Bunch would have us believe never happens. Excerpt:

A man “opened fire” Thursday in an Oklahoma restaurant, leaving at least four people injured, before he was fatally shot by a bystander, police said.

The gunfire unfolded at about 6:30 p.m. local time at Louie’s on the Lake in Oklahoma City, Fox 25 News reported.

The unidentified shooter entered the restaurant and fired his gun, Oklahoma City Police tweeted, who later added that four people had been injured.And:

The man, police said, “was apparently shot-to-death by an armed citizen” outside the restaurant and there was “no indication of terrorism.”

I love a happy ending. This is a likely would-be mass shooter stopped by an armed citizen who, apparently, put one right in the ten ring and stopped the incident cold.

This isn’t an isolated incident. Look here and you’ll see quite a few more examples.

Now, I’m generally not a fan of utilitarian arguments for gun ownership; the Bill of Rights guarantees the right of law-abiding citizens to own guns, and that’s the best and final argument. But it’s been demonstrated that defensive uses of firearms in the United States outweighs the criminal use of firearms, and these are good data points to have when… discussing… the issue with would-be gun grabbers.

In any case, kudos to this as-yet-unnamed Oklahoma citizen. He was in the right place at the right time to stop what may have been an unspeakable act by a criminal scumbag.

After the deadly school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas on Friday, former Obama-era secretary of education Arne Duncan said it would be a good idea for students to stay out of school until gun laws are reformed.

“This is brilliant, and tragically necessary. What if no children went to school until gun laws changed to keep them safe?”

Duncan said his own family would be willing to participate if it was possible to make it happen.

“My family is all in if we can do this at scale. Parents, will you please join us?” He said.

This guy was Secretary of Education. Furshlugginer Secretary of Education, and obviously his grasp of elementary logic is about at the 4th grade level.

Allow me to illustrate an absurdity by using another absurdity: Let’s suppose Mothers Against Drunk Driving wanted to come up with a highly visible boycott to protest the numbers of drunk driving deaths in the U.S., which deaths, by the way, vastly outnumber deaths in school shootings. Let’s suppose they decide to protest drunk-driving deaths…

…by staging protests at car dealerships.

“Now, Animal,” you might say, “that’s just ridiculous.” Well, so is holding your kid out of school to protest school shootings – which is only a tiny bit more insane that protesting the NRA.

But former Cabinet-level Imperial appointees, it seems, aren’t required to pass any exams to gain their positions.